Chess thread

[The Baron]

Doesn't look worth it? Someone better than me needs to explain please....

[Tal]

Doesn't look worth it? Someone better than me needs to explain please....

Has to try something. No guarantee of such an imbalanced position on Tuesday.

[TightEnd]

if you are going to go kamikaze at some point this game, why as Anand start with the Berlin? why not go for a very sharp unfamiliar opening and do it from the start?

[Tal]

if you are going to go kamikaze at some point this game, why as Anand start with the Berlin? why not go for a very sharp unfamiliar opening and do it from the start?

As black, he has to make sure he's still in the game and getting to a position like this is achievable. What you get to do is get to a quiet endgame if you want to. Obviously, Anand can choose something more complicated.

He could have tried a sharper variation of the Lopez, but he has evidently put a lot of work into the Berlin in recent weeks, so he might have fancied he had a possible line to give him the double edged position he needs.

[Tal]

That was a quick conclusion!

Anand panicked, I think. Not listening to the commentary, but that's what it looks like to me. b5 was a very good move, but you're right, Tighty, that the exchange sac was not quite right. He then really made a mess of the moves he made at speed. Do wonder whether all those hours of grinding have taken their toll.

[Tal]

Anand went for the Berlin again and reached an interesting position, with chances for both sides. Then, he spotted a spectacular move in ...b5, to open up the white defences and find more play for himself. Sadly, he thought the position was better than it actually was and sacrificed a rook for a bishop, expecting the bishop pair he'd leave behind to make good use of the clearance.

Magnus evidently hadn't seen the move and reeled back in horror. He steeped himself and set to work, slowly coming to the view he was ok and, when Anand overcommitted, he pounced with merciless aplomb. It was a beautiful, clinical execution and there is little by way of superlative that can be offered to describe this young Norwegian. He wasn't at his best and his opponent threw the kitchen sink at him, even defending long into the night and displaying an imagination which belied his middle age. But here Magnus stands, a victor by a two point margin over eleven games on the grandest stage of all:



http://en.chessbase.com/post/sochi-g11-in-dramatic-finale-carlsen-retains-title


A big thanks to everyone who supported me on this interesting journey. Two down, five to go.

Click to see full-size image.

[The Baron]

Miles better than last year but still a bit of a Carlsen-Anand typical bore fest. Get Fabio in there!

Why no wc match next year?

[McGlashan]

Miles better than last year but still a bit of a Carlsen-Anand typical bore fest. Get Fabio in there!

Why no wc match next year?

It's a bi annual cycle that was out of sync and for whatever reason they went with 2 in a row to reset it.

On the plus side the 2015 London Chess Classic should return to the regular classical format once the chess calendar clears and Magnus Carlsen can return. 

[The Baron]

Ah ok, tyty

[neeko]

.


A big thanks to everyone who supported me on this interesting journey. Two down, five to go.

Does this mean he is only going to defend it 5 more times? (If he could)

[Honeybadger]

I remember watching Mayweather vs Hatton, and I am embarrassed to say that at the end of each round I assumed Hatton had won the round. He was the one going forward, making things happen, attacking. Then in the slow motion replays between each round I saw I was wrong every time: Hatton had not landed a punch, Mayweather's defence was too good, and Mayweather had caught Hatton repeatedly on the counter with punches that were so fast I had not been able to see them in real-time on the telly. Basically, I had no idea what was really going on in the fight and could not appreciate what made Mayweather so good until I saw the action slowed down.

Seems to me that Carlsen is the Floyd Mayweather of chess. Technically brilliant, and not especially likeable (pretty cold and arrogant). And most crucially, it is hard for weak-playing chess enthusiasts like me to understand his play properly. His games seem boring and lifeless. And inpenetrable for someone of my limited chess understanding. Even Karpov's and Petrosian's games were not totally like this. Their styles were also based on fending off counterplay and squeezing opponents to death, but I can at least partly understand what is going on when I play through their games. In most of Carlsen's games I have simply no idea what he is doing. Presumably his technique is just so far advanced that I cannot make any sense of it.

There is also another issue I have with Carlsen. Chess is not just a mind-sport, it is an art as well. And IMO all world champions should feel a 'responsibility' to create something, to strive for beauty. Even if that means sometimes taking a risk or two. Yet Carlsen appears to almost totally ignore the aesthetic side of chess and focuses 100% on the sporting side. He is massively pragmatic, and does not seem to want to take risks in order to create something beautiful.

His pragmatic approach means he just aims for equal looking positions with not much happening and then will play on for another five hours, taking advantage of his stamina edge, until his opponent finally makes a small mistake or two. Then he will grind out a win using his amazing technique. Brutally effective, but not especially interesting, fun or creative.

Another very non-endearing example of his pragmatism was when he played on in a completely drawn ending vs Vishy last week. This was highly disrespectful since it was such an easy ending for any strong player to draw, let alone an elite grandmaster and former WC. He probably did it to try to antagonise Vishy and tire him out a bit before the next game. Highly pragmatic, but not especially classy.

You so rarely see fun and exciting games from Carlsen. They are turgid and boring. Maybe that is because his technique is so far advanced that only grandmasters can appreciate the beauty (if there is any) in his play - perhaps all the interesting stuff lies beneath the surface, in the variations that do not occur, and thus only really strong players can understand what is going on when following through his games.

He may well be the strongest chess player ever. And he may well remain WC for many years to come. But in 100 years I don't think many of his games are going to feature in the anthologies. People will be playing through Kasparov-Topolov (that one with the amazing king hunt), Byrne vs Fischer, Anderssen's Immortal and Evergreen games, or countless Mikhail Tal games for centuries to come. But Carlsen's games will be forgotten.

Of course, respect to the guy for being so good at chess, and for being WC etc. When he looks back on his career he will be able to think "for a time, I was the best in the world at moving wooden pieces around a board". Kasparov can think the same thing, but can also think that he created something that will continue to give huge pleasure to people for many, many years.

[The Baron]

I remember watching Mayweather vs Hatton, and I am embarrassed to say that at the end of each round I assumed Hatton had won the round. He was the one going forward, making things happen, attacking. Then in the slow motion replays between each round I saw I was wrong every time: Hatton had not landed a punch, Mayweather's defence was too good, and Mayweather had caught Hatton repeatedly on the counter with punches that were so fast I had not been able to see them in real-time on the telly. Basically, I had no idea what was really going on in the fight and could not appreciate what made Mayweather so good until I saw the action slowed down.

Seems to me that Carlsen is the Floyd Mayweather of chess. Technically brilliant, and not especially likeable (pretty cold and arrogant). And most crucially, it is hard for weak-playing chess enthusiasts like me to understand his play properly. His games seem boring and lifeless. And inpenetrable for someone of my limited chess understanding. Even Karpov's and Petrosian's games were not totally like this. Their styles were also based on fending off counterplay and squeezing opponents to death, but I can at least partly understand what is going on when I play through their games. In most of Carlsen's games I have simply no idea what he is doing. Presumably his technique is just so far advanced that I cannot make any sense of it.

There is also another issue I have with Carlsen. Chess is not just a mind-sport, it is an art as well. And IMO all world champions should feel a 'responsibility' to create something, to strive for beauty. Even if that means sometimes taking a risk or two. Yet Carlsen appears to almost totally ignore the aesthetic side of chess and focuses 100% on the sporting side. He is massively pragmatic, and does not seem to want to take risks in order to create something beautiful.

His pragmatic approach means he just aims for equal looking positions with not much happening and then will play on for another five hours, taking advantage of his stamina edge, until his opponent finally makes a small mistake or two. Then he will grind out a win using his amazing technique. Brutally effective, but not especially interesting, fun or creative.

Another very non-endearing example of his pragmatism was when he played on in a completely drawn ending vs Vishy last week. This was highly disrespectful since it was such an easy ending for any strong player to draw, let alone an elite grandmaster and former WC. He probably did it to try to antagonise Vishy and tire him out a bit before the next game. Highly pragmatic, but not especially classy.

You so rarely see fun and exciting games from Carlsen. They are turgid and boring. Maybe that is because his technique is so far advanced that only grandmasters can appreciate the beauty (if there is any) in his play - perhaps all the interesting stuff lies beneath the surface, in the variations that do not occur, and thus only really strong players can understand what is going on when following through his games.

He may well be the strongest chess player ever. And he may well remain WC for many years to come. But in 100 years I don't think many of his games are going to feature in the anthologies. People will be playing through Kasparov-Topolov (that one with the amazing king hunt), Byrne vs Fischer, Anderssen's Immortal and Evergreen games, or countless Mikhail Tal games for centuries to come. But Carlsen's games will be forgotten.

Of course, respect to the guy for being so good at chess, and for being WC etc. When he looks back on his career he will be able to think "for a time, I was the best in the world at moving wooden pieces around a board". Kasparov can think the same thing, but can also think that he created something that will continue to give huge pleasure to people for many, many years.

This is such a good post and perfectly sums up how I feel about him.

[Tal]

Thanks for that, HB. You're certainly not alone and you aren't in all that much of a minority.

An interesting thread on this very subject:

http://www.chess.com/blog/ih8sens/apparently-carlsen-is-boring

[Tal]

I can't pretend to understand what goes on in Carlsen's head, but I think the argument that his style is boring is a little harsh. He is in a world championship match against an opponent who is well versed in opening theory and a gifted tactician.  Play to your strengths. If you play against Man City, keeping it tight for as long as possible, nicking a goal and then holding onto the advantage is a perfectly valid way of playing. Works for Mourinho in most big games.

Fischer is a good comparator. He understood the long term power of the pieces better than anyone else and a small edge was something he was happy to take to the endgame to make the opponent squirm. Carlsen said so himself:

What I admired most about him was his ability to make what was in fact so difficult look easy to us. I try to emulate him. - Magnus Carlsen

It's also easy to forget he's the world rapidplay and the world blitz champion. You can't win those titles without being tactically brilliant. What you see is a guy playing to his strengths and his opponent's weaknesses. And that's why he's champion.

[Tal]

Hou Yifan and Garry Kasparov give their impressions of the Carlsen-Anand match. Politics aside, I really do enjoy the way Kapsarov writes.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/kasparov-the-quality-of-the-games-was-not-so-high